Team Building in the Desert

24Mar

In February, I enjoyed a 5-day company retreat in Scottsdale, AZ and one highlight from the trip was our team building in the Arizona Desert. Would you ever think being in a desert, with your co-workers and their special guest, would be such a neat team building experience? Well, at first it might not sound that exciting, but if I told you that hummers, a scavenger hunt, and 3 team challenges were involved in this event, it might just change your mind. Below, is a list of our team building activities that we were tasked with.

Team Challenge #1-Building a Bridge

We had to build a bridge between two platforms to transport your entire team (8-10 people), from one platform to the other with only 4 boards. You had to pretend there was a valley between the platforms, so the boards could not touch the ground. The platforms were separated far enough that you could not just use 1 board to cross to the next platform, but rather a combination of a few boards to completely reach the next platform. The quickest team to complete this challenge wins.

Team Challenge #2-Puzzle Memory

We were given about 10 seconds to look the answer on how to the puzzle should look like in the end. Then, we were provided the different colored shapes to assemble and match the picture. If you had to ask to see the solution again, it just meant they would add more time onto your total time. The quickest team to complete this challenge wins. Hint: It’s best to break the puzzle solutions into quadrants and assign team members to only focus on their quadrant, so it’s easy to quickly assemble the puzzle.

Team Challenge #3-Scavenger Hunt

Find a list of about 10 different cactuses in the Arizona and take a picture team picture around the cactus displaying a theme, such as risk-taking, teambuilding, customer-first, etc.

Team Challenge #4 – Giant Jenga

Each team member had to take a turn and add an additional 3 levels on top of the Giant Jenga, without the tower falling down, then reassemble the puzzle. The quickest team to complete this challenge wins.

What Benefits Do Team Building Events Have on an Organization?

Ability to bond organization members together both horizontally (between subordinates) and vertically (between managers and subordinates)

Helps to learn how each member things and works, such as identifying strengths and weaknesses of its members, and the ways in which the team attempts to carries out its goals

Increase team efficiency by strengthening relationships and work habits of your fellow co-workers, with the goal of increasing productivity

Helps to build trust between co-workers, which helps to raise employee morale

Helps to facilitate more communication between workers and each person’s is able to better understand how each individual job roles all fit together, so better networking paths are formed

What other benefits from team building events can you think of? Please share your thoughts below in the comment section. Thank you.

Click here to enjoy a video from our team building retreat in Arizona.